US asserts no Mideast peace will be made at Jordan’s expense

AMMAN — No solution to the Palestinian-Israeli issue is going to be at the expense of Jordan, a US envoy stressed on Wednesday. 

Assistant Secretary of State for N    ear Eastern Affairs Anne W. Patterson told reporters in Amman that Secretary of State John Kerry has kept His Majesty King Abdullah and Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh closely informed about the discussions. 

“He made a special point of this: He is not going to make the mistakes done in the past peace processes, so he has been very careful to discuss these issues with the King and Judeh, and we are sure that they are very familiar with what is going on,” Patterson told a press conference following a meeting early in the day with Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour and Minister of Finance Umayya Toukan.

This was also stressed by US Ambassador to Jordan Stuart E. Jones, who noted that with a viable peace process, Jordan will benefit from the increased investment activities expected in the region.

Meanwhile, Patterson noted that she attended an economic conference at the Dead Sea that highlighted some of the prospects for economic development in the region in the wake of the peace process.

At her meeting with the premier and finance minister, Patterson said: “We had a discussion about Jordan’s successful economic reform… and His Majesty the King’s visit to the United States, which was very successful.”

She also noted that the US respects Jordan’s “generosity” in hosting Syrian refugees. 

“[We hold] our deep respect for Jordan’s generosity, in absorbing a range of 700,000- 750,000 Syrian refugees, [becoming] the largest among host communities.”

“We know that this is a serious burden on Jordan,” she said, adding that the US is urging the international community to continue to further assist Jordan as it carries out the mission.

The US envoy expected that “the Syrian conflict will be a problem for yet a time to come and the international community needs to support Jordan”. 

However, she said that the US is the largest donor to the Syrian refugees. “The more the international communities are helpful to Syrians, the less likely they are going to move into neighbouring countries.”

According to figures presented by Jones, of the $1.7 billion in humanitarian assistance Washington has extended to the region, a “significant portion goes to Syria… and this has an effect on preventing people from moving”.

He added that more than $200 million came directly to Jordan to support its humanitarian efforts, in addition to the $660 million of annual regular assistance to Amman, which has been raised to $1 billion in 2014.

“We are the only country that is giving direct cash transfer to Jordan to support the refugee budget. We also gave $7 million in direct assistance to the affected [local] communities just last year,” Jones noted.

Both Patterson and Jones also stressed that there are no US troops on the Jordanian-Syrian border, noting that the US supports the border control project with the latest technology and the same sort of equipment and technologies used by the US border authorities.

Ensour said during his meeting with the US official that King Abdullah began the reform efforts at all levels before the start of the so-called “Arab Spring”, citing the constitutional amendments and the establishment of the Independent Elections Commission as examples of milestone reforms implemented by Jordan, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra. 

He noted that the Kingdom maintains its security and stability despite being in the centre of regional unrest and crises, thanking the US for providing moral and financial support to Jordan. 

For her part, Patterson commended King Abdullah’s efforts to bring about just and comprehensive peace to the Middle East, in addition to endeavours to resolve the Syrian crisis politically, in a way that ends the bloodshed and protects the country’s cohesion and unity.